


Scaffold

by chai_pandemic17



Series: Saltwater [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Boys In Love, Cute, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Eating, Fireworks (Mentioned), Fluff, Food, Foreshadowing, Gay, Japanese Culture, Little Dialogue, M/M, Memories, Minor Original Character(s), Painting, Street food, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, because i kept getting sucked into researched japanese culture, listen it's so fascinating, this took me far too long to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29910294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chai_pandemic17/pseuds/chai_pandemic17
Summary: A concept decision is finally made, so the pair decide to take a break. There's a local street food shop nearby, and Yamaguchi's stomach is growling. But Tsukishima keeps looking at something on his phone...It starts off with a sketch, a cellphone, and a street food vendor.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Series: Saltwater [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189511
Kudos: 4





	Scaffold

_(Tsukishima's POV)_

"I can start today, if you'd like?" Yamaguchi asked, after he and Hana had spent the better part of an hour deciding on a concept.

Tsukishima thought that everything he had drawn was good, though he told himself he wouldn't say so, especially after surprising even himself by complimenting Yamaguchi earlier. The one they'd decided on had a mint background, covered in sunflowers, morning glories, lotus flowers, irises, lavender, roses, carnations, camellia, violets, tulips, and, of course, cherry blossoms.

The purple flowers began at the bottom, scattered here and there with blue morning glories, all fading upwards into the pink flowers. Those were dotted with reds, and, at the very top, the bright, warm yellow of the sunflowers. The latter danced around a neat little area reserved for the name of the shop to be painted in curving white letters. Some petals broke the rectangular border - particularly the sunflowers at the top - and some were completely outside, floating as if they had been shaken from their flowers.

Even just with the colored pencils, it was obvious that it would be extremely beautiful, painted boldly above the flower shop. They had learned that Hana lived in the floor upstairs when the shop was open. There were, thankfully, no windows on the brick wall Yamaguchi was to paint, since she had bricked them over for privacy.

Tsukishima removed his glasses and wiped them on his sweatshirt as he listened to the two talk.

"It's only, uh..." Yamaguchi continued, trailing off.

"One thirty."

"Ah, yeah! Thanks, Tsukki," he grinned, before turning back to Hana and her raised brows. "So we can go get lunch and come back at a little past two!"

She rose to her feet with a matching grin, closing the binder with a snap. "Then it's decided! While you two do that, I'll set you up a space just outside. When I bricked over the windows - myself, I might add - I bought a sort of portable scaffold platform that I think would work well."

Yamaguchi bowed rapidly. "Thank you very much, Hana, really!"

Tsukishima watched as she laughed. "It's no problem at all!"

He pulled his headphones back on, having finished cleaning his glasses. On his phone, he selected "Thunderstorm" - the playlist he and Yamaguchi constantly added to. It had the largest amount of songs: ones they heard over the radio and liked, favorites from each of the other playlists, songs they had rediscovered from their childhood, and even a few of their favorite movie soundtracks.

Since it had such a sheer amount of run time, it was the playlist Tsukishima listened to most often, usually to block out outside noise. He wondered for a moment if Yamaguchi knew this, before the music began and drowned out everything else. He closed out of a tab on his phone, catching one last glimpse of the words "commission" and "tattoo" before he did so. Then, resisting the urge to just close his eyes and become dead to the world, Tsukishima stood with his hands in his pockets and watched Yamaguchi gather his stuff and say goodbye to Hana.

Tsukki pushed himself away from the wall, nodded to Hana as he passed, and took Yamaguchi's duffel from him without a word, slinging it over his shoulder and pushing open the door. He faintly heard the other call one last goodbye before shutting the door behind them. The cold temperature was slightly tamer, now, but still felt like a slap in the face as he squinted behind his glasses at the solid white sky.

A familiar tug on his upper sleeve prompted Tsukishima to glance at the grinning, freckled face coming up beside him. The corner of his own mouth twitched, but he hid it behind his hand as he pulled one speaker away from his ears to better hear Yamaguchi speak. He was babbling about how excited he was to begin painting and didn't he like the final concept they'd come up with?

Tsukishima hummed in response, knowing he'd understand, and hoisted the duffel higher once they began walking. "Where are we eating?" he asked during a lull.

Yamaguchi hummed, this time. "Well... it'd be warmer if we went in somewhere, but on the way here I saw a street vendor selling _yakiimo..."_

"I know a place," Tsukki said. "Come on."

~•°•°---------------------°•°•~

_(Note: The flowers listed on the concept sketches are popular flowers in Japan.)_

~•°•°-----------------------°•°•~

_(Yamaguchi's POV)_

Yamaguchi sighed in pure bliss as he felt the warmth from the _takoyaki_ spread from his belly. Tsukki had led him into an orange and gold-themed, mostly indoor street food stall, nestled between the tattoo parlor and a clothing store that specialized in women's fashion. It was warmer, here, with the multi-colored lanterns and the sizzling of meat, dough, and noodles being fried behind the counter giving the whole place a cozy and delicious aura.

The tables around them - and the stools at the counter - were stuffed with people chattering and enjoying their meals, but not uncomfortably so. The smell was something else: savory and bready and wholly umami. The smoke and steam from the grills billows out into the street, and would be beautiful in the glow of night.

"I've never been here before!" Yamaguchi said, before lifting another _takoyaki_ ball with his chopsticks.

Tsukishima shifted, suddenly feeling pins and needles in his legs from kneeling, and decided to sit cross-legged instead. "I've been once or twice," he said, having finished his _oden_.

Yamaguchi swallowed yet another bite. "Well, we should come here again sometime. At night, maybe! It's been _ages_ since I've explored the shopping districts at night. I think the last time I really had the time was last summer at the Nagaoka fireworks festival in Niigata. Remember?"

Tsukishima's eyes flitted up to the ceiling for a moment as he remembered. The fireworks festival was one of the most popular in Japan, and one of the biggest, especially with its massive fireworks. The finale was the bit he could picture the clearest, what with the sheer size, spanning a huge length of the Shinano River. He could smell the smoke and the street food, and hear the crackles and booms of the fireworks setting off, see the near-blinding lights... It had been almost too overwhelming.

"Yeah," Tsukishima replied, simply.

Yamaguchi glanced down at his plate for a moment, then looked back up at him. "Hey, Tsukki?"

He picked at a piece of rice on his plate with his chopsticks and looked at him, urging him to continue.

"Uh... I'm not sure if I should apologize or say thank you for everything back at the flower shop."

"What do you mean?"

"Well - with Hana. About, you know - us." Yamaguchi quickly shoved another _takoyaki_ into his mouth and chewed with reddening cheeks.

"She was curious, but getting intrusive," Tsukishima began, bluntly. "So I told her an answer."

"'An'?" Yamaguchi asked, with one hand covering his still-full mouth.

Tsukki looked at him with an odd expression - a mixture of amusement and simple curiosity. "It's been a few years, now, like you said. And while we've known each other for much longer than that, and know our way around each other, it still feels new. For... both of us. We don't know exactly what the boundaries are, so you look at me how you do. So, yes, 'an' answer."

Yamaguchi flushed, fidgeting with his chopsticks, not knowing what to say.

"Let's talk when we get home," Tsukki said.

The other looked back up at him, grateful. "Okay!"

While Yamaguchi ate, the other pulled out his phone and furrowed at it. He unlocked it and typed something out - seemingly replying to someone. Yamaguchi raised a brow but otherwise didn’t ask about it. Then the phone disappeared, and the food was nearly gone. Tsukishima waited until Yamaguchi had finished eating, and they rearranged their dishes to their original position.

 _"Gochisosama deshita,"_ they said in unison, bowing their heads slightly to the table.

Then they stood, and Yamaguchi gathered his duffel as Tsukishima paid. When they exited the shop, Tsukki handed Yamaguchi a small bag in exchange for his duffel. He peeked in the bag while they walked, curiously.

"It's _taiyaki,"_ Tsukki said, his headphones around his neck. "For later, while you're painting."

Yamaguchi looked at him in surprise. "Thanks!"

"Shut up, Yamaguchi."

 _"Gomen,_ Tsukki."

~•°•°---------------------°•°•~

_(Note: "Takoyaki" "or 'octopus balls' is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus (tako), tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger (beni shoga), and green onion (negi). The balls are brushed with takoyaki sauce (similar to Worcestershire sauce) and mayonnaise, and then sprinkled with green laver (aonori) and shavings of dried bonito (katsuobushi)._

_"Oden" is "a winter dish of meats, fish, and vegetable items stewed in a light broth for a very long time. Good for warming up on a cold night."_

_Nagaoka Fireworks Festival: "First started in 1946 as a war-damage reconstruction event to mourn the deceased of WWII, the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival in Niigata Prefecture carries on the spirit of Japan through the decades."_

_"Taiyaki" is "a Japanese fish-shaped cake, commonly sold as street food. It imitates the shape of tai (red seabream), which it is named after. The most common filling is red bean paste that is made from sweetened azuki beans. Other common fillings may be custard, chocolate, cheese, or sweet potato.")_

~•°•°---------------------°•°•~

When they arrived back at the flower shop, it was just a few minutes past two in the afternoon. It being the middle of winter, it wasn't the brightest out, but it wasn't dark, either. So, they could clearly see the setup that Hana had created for Yamaguchi.

A rolling scaffold platform had been secured in front of the door, and it comfortably reached the area that was to be painted. Yamaguchi gulped at the height, but the platform had secure railings, and really wasn't even that high up, given that the flower shop was fairly short.

The fabric awning had been taken down so that the platform could be nearly flush against the wall, which meant that the front door was blocked. From the roof, which was flat and appeared to be accessible via the fire escape, a mock awning had been propped up, from which clear plastic "walls" hung, surrounding the platform.

The pair surveyed the setup for a moment. Tsukki moved first, toward the front door, to read the paper that had been taped up from the inside. When Yamaguchi joined him, he could see that it read "The back door is by the fire escape!" in neat Sharpie. Yamaguchi glanced at Tsukki with raised eyebrows, and they dutifully made their way around the building to the back.

The fire escape came into view as they rounded the corner: a worn but sturdy-looking circular staircase of black metal that twirled its way upwards to the roof. Even here, empty planters hung from the railings, begging to be filled with twisting and hanging vines. And just beside the stairs, as promised, was the back door, greyish-green and windowless.

Yamaguchi stood behind Tsukki as he gripped the handle and turned, pulling it open with a grunt.


End file.
